No, that isn't me.

[michaelskis]

The family that owned our house before we bought it last fall are really nice people. However follow-through isn't something they appear to be big on. We continuously still get their mail and despite at least a half a dozen conversations with the post office and even more of us sending them their mail, we continue to get stuff for them. In one case, it hits close to home. We have been receiving letters from another community addressed to an LLC that regarding property that they own. We have not opened any letters, but I know an NOV when I see it, and they printed off the address in that community on the envelope.

I finally just contacted that community regarding the issue and even provided the proper address to send the documents to. I got a response thanking me, and so I thought it was done.

A few hours later, I get another e-mail from the municipality indicating that they reviewed the state comptroller information and that it lists me as the property owner of record and therefore I am responsible for it. They want me to provide documentation proving that I don't own the property. They obviously didn't look very hard because when you look up the LLC, it lists the previous property owners name, but with my address. It also hasn't been updated in more than 15 years...

I am going to be nice in my reply because I know how it is working for government. On the flipside, it is disappointing that this lack of research before sending such an e-mail is representative of the stereotypes of government employees.

Have you ever had a similar situation where you had to prove that you are not who they say you are?

 

[The Terminator]

From 1988 until 1996, my parents (and later me post '91) lived in a coop apartment building in Yonkers very close to the Bronx/NYC line. We would constantly get mail for an "Oscar Grossman" who lived in the same unit # in the building across the street. Even after moving and forwarding the address with USPS, we continued to receive mail for Mr. Grossman until I was in High School.

My dad and Mr. Grossman actually got to know each other sorta well, we were always giving him his mail!

 

[Planit]

Our address is 104 Streetname NE. The house across the street is 107 Streetname NE.

We have received their mail & amazon packages quite a few times over the years. Not sure why.

A new family moved in last year & we had one of their packages delivered to our porch. I took it over (it was a nice way to meet them too) & explained that this happens occasionally but not to worry because we'll bring it over. About 3 weeks later, another package is delivered to our door about 8:00 am on a Saturday morning. I brought it in the house & was going to take it over a little bit later. Within the next 20 minutes, the wife comes over, knocks on the door, shows me the picture of the delivery (at our door) & asks for her package. I picked it up & handed it to her. Then she just turns around & walks away. No thanks, no okay, nothing.

I don't bring their package into the house anymore. If she wants it, she can come & get it.

 

[mendelman]

We get our landlord's mail still because he still has our house listed as his residence.

Also, we get one of our neighbor's mail and packages regularly because our two houses sit on either side of the N/S addressing boundary in my muni.

We're 1 S. Streetname and they are 1 N. Streetname.

 

[JNA]

I was a victim of credit card fraud through the mail.
Somebody used a credit card application with my name & old address, got the credit card & ran up charges on it in Colorado.
The credit card bill was forwarded to me here.
It took awhile to clear my name & credit with the credit card company, the 3 credit bureaus.

 

[Gedunker]

My brother happened to be in the good fortune of not needing to collect his SS until shortly after his 70th birthday. That raised suspicions with the people at SSA when he actually did apply. Apparently, very, very few people wait that long and they thought the application could be fraudulent.

He had a couple of phone calls with agents from SSA and he said what they knew about him - from many, many years ago - was astonishing.

 

[WSU MUP Student]

Our address is 104 Streetname NE. The house across the street is 107 Streetname NE.

We have received their mail & amazon packages quite a few times over the years. Not sure why.

A new family moved in last year & we had one of their packages delivered to our porch. I took it over (it was a nice way to meet them too) & explained that this happens occasionally but not to worry because we'll bring it over. About 3 weeks later, another package is delivered to our door about 8:00 am on a Saturday morning. I brought it in the house & was going to take it over a little bit later. Within the next 20 minutes, the wife comes over, knocks on the door, shows me the picture of the delivery (at our door) & asks for her package. I picked it up & handed it to her. Then she just turns around & walks away. No thanks, no okay, nothing.

I don't bring their package into the house anymore. If she wants it, she can come & get it.

We're in a similar situation...

We're at 3200 OurStreet and there is a house a few houses away that is at 3200 TheirStreet. TheirStreet ends at a curved T-intersection with a little traffic island right in front of our house. Our neighborhood has "fancy" old wooden street signs that have been there since the 1950s and if you are not familiar with the neighborhood it can be confusing as to which street is which. Thanks to the curves in the roads at the intersection, it's especially confusing right in that spot. We used to get their mail quite frequently when we would have a substitute carrier and they would get our mail. I didn't mind getting their mail and walking down to their house and putting it in their mailbox for them and they never seemed to mind doing the same for us either. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to meet them and learn that the husband was a Marine too! But after having the mail mixed up everyday for a week when our normal carrier was on vacation, I put a little handwritten sign on the inside of the little flap on our mailslot so that when they flip it up the carrier is reminded what street they are on and that seemed to solve the problem, at least with USPS.

FWIW, the USPS was the worst for mixing up the addresses but we also occasionally get FedEx and DHL deliveries for them (never Amazon). Since those carriers don't use the mailbox and don't see my little sign, we still get them from time to time - we actually had a FedEx delivery from them last week when I was home so I pointed them to the correct house. I don't think we've ever gotten a UPS delivery for them and I've noticed that UPS seems to have the same driver in our 'hood everyday so they're probably more familiar with the area.

We've even had their houses guests and a party caterer show up! One afternoon a few years ago there was a knock on the door and it was an older man and woman with a bottle of wine. They were surprised when I answered the door and not their friend David. They had never visited David and his wife at their house but saw our house number and our Marine Corps flag and figured this must be the place. Another time I was in the kitchen doing something and I looked out to the front and there was a catering van in our side driveway and a few and a couple ladies come up to the door pushing a cart with a bunch of trays of food. I was sort of curious if I could just play it off that the party was canceled but we'd keep the food but honesty got the best of me and I sent them in the right direction. As they were walking back to their van, I heard one of the women tell the other, "I told you it was the other street!"

 

[bureaucrat#3]

We get mail fairly regularly for the people who owned the home two owners ago. The both lived here for 50+ years before passing away. Last year during the presidential election, he'd get mailers twice a week from some Republican pac. He also gets a yearly birthday card from the Tennessee Squires (Jack Daniels Fan Club). The man died in 2001. His wife passed in 2012.

While I don't have a very common last name, my first and last name are often paired together. In high school I had to talk my way out of detention because my friend who shared the same first and last name got in trouble. Then about a year after I moved to this community, I got a call from the Police Department for the city I worked for because a warrant had been issued for someone with a very similar name and they thought at first it might be me. I only had to tell them to look at the full name and address, but it was still an interesting phone call. Apparently, they thought I might have been floating a lot of bad checks.

 

[zman]

I still get retirement account mail for a resident in my house from 15 years ago (when I looked up the assessor ownership).

The only time I had to prove it wasnt me was when I received a photo radar ticket from a county in Florida where the car in the photo was a white Toyota, with Florida plates that matched the plate number for my red Honda that had Colorado plates on it.

 

[Doohickie]

You know how sometimes people google their names? I did that and discovered there are exactly two people with my combination of Firstname Lastname. AND while we're not related, we both live in the same county here in Texas. He's my son's age.

Since then the other guy has moved over to Dallas, one county over, and had a son with same first name. So now there are three of us.

To be honest I'm a little surprised that no one as confused us for each other yet.

 

[michaelskis]

You know how sometimes people google their names? I did that and discovered there are exactly two people with my combination of Firstname Lastname. AND while we're not related, we both live in the same county here in Texas. He's my son's age.

Since then the other guy has moved over to Dallas, one county over, and had a son with same first name. So now there are three of us.

To be honest I'm a little surprised that no one as confused us for each other yet.

Try having a common name. Turns out someone with the same name (first and last) as mine worked for the same City. He retired shortly before I started.

 

[Bubba]

Have you ever had a similar situation where you had to prove that you are not who they say you are?

Not me, but about 25 years ago we had county sheriff deputies show up at our apartment and try to arrest Mrs. Bubba - apparently there was an outstanding arrest warrant for the previous occupant of that apartment who just happened to have the same first name as Mrs. Bubba. Good times...

 

[bureaucrat#3]

Try having a common name. Turns out someone with the same name (first and last) as mine worked for the same City. He retired shortly before I started.

At my first job our emails were first initial and last name. My name and the CM's first and middle name were the same and our last names started with same first letter. Fairly often I would get emails way above my paygrade because of outlook's autofill/suggest for emails. I twice found out that people were getting fired before the City Manager. The first time I forwarded it to him and got chewed out by HR for "pointing out" their carelessness. After that, I would either email the person back and let them know they sent it to the wrong person or just delete them.